2017/09/27 by Daniel Ketover, Ketover, Daniel, Yevgeny Liokumovich +1
Mathematics · #Differential Geometry (math.DG) #FOS: Mathematics #Geometric Analysis and Curvature Flows #Geometric Topology (math.GT) #Geometric and Algebraic Topology #Geometry and complex manifolds
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1709.09744
openalex publication_date 2017/09/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We prove that for generic metrics on a 3-sphere, the minimal surface obtained from the min-max procedure of Simon-Smith has index 1. We prove an analogous result for minimal surfaces arising from strongly irreducible Heegaard sweepouts in 3-manifolds. We also confirm a conjecture of Pitts-Rubinstein that a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting in a hyperbolic three-manifold can either be isotoped to a minimal surface of index at most 1 or else after a neck-pinch is isotopic to a one-sided minimal Heegaard surface.